Scadoxus and Haemanthus
J.E. Shields (Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:56:08 PDT)

Here in Indiana, all my Scadoxus are dormant in winter, in the greenhouse:
multiflorus katherinae, membranaceus, and puniceus. S. puniceus blooms in
February in the greenhouse, then slowly puts up foliage.

Haemanthus albiflos, pauculifolius, humilis humilis, humilis hirsutus, and
montanus all grow outoors in summer here. I keep albiflos and
pauculifolius in the lath house in summer, the humilis and montanus on the
deck in full sun. H. humilis hirsutus and montanus are in bloom right
now. H. humilis humilis should bloom in a few weeks. H. albiflos blooms
in late summer or autumn, pauculifolius blooms in winter in the greenhouse.

All spend the winter in the cool greenhouse, for the most part bone dry. H.
albiflos and pauculifolius are more or less evergreen. The humilis bulbs
retain their leaves until well into winter, then lose them completely. The
two forms of humilis are still quite leafless, but the montanus are
starting to leaf out.

H. humilis hirsutus, montanus, albiflos, and pauculifolius all have white
flowers. H. humilis humilis have pink inflorescences.

Only the H. humilis hirsutus are hard for me to get to bloom. It looks
like they need to get pretty large to bloom, and that means they need pots
at least 1 gal. in size as the get larger. All my humilis humilis are also
in 1-gal. pots by the time they start to flower.

Jim Shields

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA